this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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My understanding was that atheism is the belief that there is no god(s), whereas to be agnostic is the absence of belief one way or another, i.e unable to prove or disprove existence of god(s). With this interpretation it's more scientifically rational (for whatever that's worth) to be agnostic than atheist.
The importance of such a distinction doesn't merit much fuss beyond freshman philosophy though since you get some atheists who are absolutely evil cunts and plenty of genuinely good people of almost all religions.
Atheism doesn't make any positive claims. It doesn't claim to know there is no god. That's anti-theist.
Atheism makes the negative claim of: none of your god claims has sufficient evidence, therefore I don't believe them.
Now, individual atheists themselves can say and do whatever. That's on them.
Mhmmm... not quite. To claim there is no god is gnostic (or strong) atheism.
Anti-Theism is the conviction that belief in a deity or religion is foolish and overall something bad for society.
Can you link me to something authoritative that shows that atheism makes the Positive Claim that "there is no god"? I've never seen that, and it seems wrong.
Here's my counter reference:
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
"Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. "
It's not about atheism in this, it's about the gnosticism in combination.
Gnostic Theism = I am convinced by the claim there is a god. And I know my conviction is correct.
Agnostic theism = I'm convinced by the claim there is a god, but I don't know if I'm right about that.
Agnostic atheism = I'm not convinced by the claim there is a god, and I don't know if I'm right about that.
Gnostic atheism = I'm not convinced there is a god. And I know my (negative) conviction is correct.
Gnostic atheism is often also called positive, strong or hard atheism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism
I'm a strong atheist myself, following this reasoning:
The "no arguments argument" for atheism:
It follows from (1) and (2) that